The Blood-Dimmed Tide Is Loosed
by winter156
Summary: Andy gets caught in a thin place on Halloween.


A/N: I meant to post this on the 31st but I was traveling for work until Friday, so I'm only now getting around to it. It's a mixture of a lot of folklore and not necessarily any one particular thing. It's just sort of what came together when I challenged myself to write a Halloween fic.

* * *

The rest area is empty. Twilight is waning and the darkness of night chases the last of the sun's rays across the western sky.

Andy parks the car and steps out into the cold evening. She shivers. There's a sudden, persistent warning in the back of her mind. She looks around but, even in the waning light, nothing seems out of place.

Andy shakes herself and walks slowly to the concrete building that breaks up the view of the tree line a few feet beyond it. The door creaks loudly as she inches it open. It's heavy. It slams shut behind her. The fluorescent lights buzz in the quiet of the concrete walls and they flicker every few seconds. Andy's breath puffs out in white clouds in front of her face. It seems colder inside the building than outside.

Andy straightens her back against the press of fear. The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stands on end. She suppresses the urge to look over her shoulder. There is no one behind her; she would've heard the opening and closing of the door.

She takes three quick strides to the closest stall and turns to latch the door. Her heart trembles as she looks through the cracks between the stall door and the wall. A small, nervous laugh escapes her. "Of course there's no one," she whispers just to dispel the feeling gnawing at her stomach.

She almost doesn't want to pull her pants down and pee. For a moment, it makes her think it would put her in too compromising a position. But the pressure in her bladder quickly reminds her why she stopped at a deserted rest area in upstate New York in the first place. She's going to pee herself.

Andy makes quick work of it and doesn't think too hard about the small noises that keep making her jump. She washes her hands with frigid water and doesn't look too closely at the shadows the flickering lights keep changing in the mirror. The hair on the back of her neck hasn't settled.

A voice in the back of her mind keeps insisting she _run_.

Her heart stops when she pulls the door to go out and it doesn't budge, not a an inch, not a hair. Andy wants to panic, she wants to bang against the door until it opens, she wants to run. She doesn't look behind her at what she feels is the presence of _something_ , the shadows not being so much shadows anymore. Maybe. She doesn't know. She's not sure she wants to know. But, her back is tense and her fist is white knuckled around the door handle. She sees the white puffs of her breath come faster and faster. She squeezes her eyes shut and pushes down the panic.

 _Run. Run. Run._

She pulls the door again with all her strength. It opens easily and silently. She stubbles out with the force of her pull transferring from the door to her body. The temperature has dropped from cold to freezing. Andy tries to adjust her eyes to the absolute darkness around her. _When did night fall?_

It's too quiet. All Andy hears is the rapid beating of her own heart. She looks around and tries to see through the thick darkness. She can't figure out how twilight faded so quickly.

The only light source is a single, weak light over where she parked the car. It seems an oasis in the expansive darkness. She starts walking carefully over to the car.

The sudden, loud riff of a piano makes her heart beat frantically. Andy laughs, almost hysterically, when she realizes it's only her phone ringing.

"Hi," she answers breathlessly. Andy suddenly feels reconnected and tethered to the world; some of the tension seeps out of her body.

"Where are you?" The question is direct and pointed but Andy can hear something like worry in the tone.

"I stopped to pee," she looks around, her eyes adjusted enough that she can see the dark tree line and the clouded sky, "literally in the middle of nowhere. I think I've watched too many horror movies. I keep jumping at shadows." Andy keeps walking to the car. She's talking too much but an unsettledness seeps into her again…the back of her mind keeps trying to work on the logistics of why she hasn't reached the car yet. She hasn't stopped walking since she got out of the restrooms.

"Did you get caught up doing another assignment?" Miranda sounds more disappointed than anything.

"No," Andy begins walking a little faster trying to get to the pool of light, the temperature keeps dropping, "I told you I'd be home to go with you and the girls out trick-or-treating. I shouldn't be more than another hour."

"The girls are asleep," Miranda says flatly.

"What?" Andy is distracted from her dogged determination to reach the car. "Why?"

"We already went out and came back. I put them to bed hours ago," Miranda's voice is back to pointed. "You should've been home hours ago."

"What are you talking about?" Andy's mind races trying to understand what Miranda is saying.

"I've been worried something happened," the frustrated worry is clear in her voice, "I've called you several times. I thought…"

"Miranda, I only stopped for a few minutes," Andy stops and turns to the concrete building, "there must've been a dead spot in the building I used. Nothing's come through until now."

"Andrea," Miranda's voice goes very quiet. Andy knows she's in trouble for something. "It's almost midnight. There's no need to lie about where you are and what you're doing."

Andy stands dumbfounded trying to digest that information. She pulls the phone from her ear and looks at the numbers of the clock. The numbers glare at her in confirmation. She turns and she bumps into the car door. "What the hell?" She looks over her shoulder and the building is no more than twenty feet from where she's standing.

The insistent voice in the back of her mind hasn't stopped telling her to _run_.

"…are you even listening?" Miranda's sharp voice brings Andy back to herself.

She opens the car and slumps into the seat. It feels a little safer in the car. "Yes," Andy doesn't want to argue. "I don't know how to explain what's going on, Miranda, because I have no idea what's going on. I can't have been here for hours, but it seems that I have. I'm not lying and I'm not stepping out on you, if that's something that's crossed your mind." It's very important that Miranda believe that. "I would never do that."

Andy fumbles to get the key in the ignition as she's talking. When she finally inserts the key properly and turns it, nothing happens. She tries again, desperate for the engine to engage. Nothing happens. "Shit!" She bangs her fist against the steering wheel in frustration.

"Andrea…"

"The car won't start," Andy knows her voice sounds on the verge of panic. "And it just started snowing."

"It's too early for snow, even that far north," Miranda's confusion is evident. "It's not cold enough yet."

"I know," Andy grinds out, frustration and fear making her voice hard, "but, snow is fucking falling all around me."

The silence on the other end is enough to make Andy feel contrite. She sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose to push back the nagging voice that keeps getting louder in her mind. "I'm sorry, I'm on edge," she says softly. "It's been a very weird few minutes…hours…whatever it's been."

"Are you okay?" The worry is back in Miranda's voice.

"Yeah," Andy says, because physically nothing has happened to her, "I just have a bad feeling about this place." She tries the key again, just in case. "I'm going to call roadside assistance," she grunts in frustration, "hopefully, I'll be home soon."

"Be careful," Miranda says softly, less pointed, still worried.

"Okay." Andy doesn't want to hang up. "Hey," she breathes out, "I love you." She wants to make sure Miranda knows…just in case.

"Come home to me," Miranda says and Andy hears _I love you, too_.

The call disconnects and silence fills all the space around her. Andy is momentarily lost without Miranda's voice as her tether. She pulls herself together and goes to call for roadside assistance but her phone is completely dead. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Andy's exasperation loudly punctuates the silence, "it just had a full battery." She thumps her forehead down on the steering wheel and tries not to think of anything for a few minutes.

The light flickering just outside the car makes her pull her head up. She watches it flicker faster until it goes dark and stays dark. The gentle snowfall has turned into a heavy white blanket coming down, almost a blizzard. It has muffled the world and no sound comes through, or goes out.

It's so silent, Andy can hear the beating of her heart. It's unsettling. Everything feels off, like she's in a different world.

She sighs and shakes her head. "Okay, pull yourself together."

Andy looks around as much as she can and wonders how she's caught in a localized storm. Her mind tries to understand how she lost hours and hours of time. And, she's still trying to ignore the insistent voice that is telling her there's danger of a different kind just out of her line of vision.

She tries to get her thoughts in order. The most pressing thing is not the monsters she's imagining in the darkness. She shoves that to the back of her mind.

Andy is isolated in the middle of an unforecasted snowstorm without a heat source. Fear of a very real and imminent danger knots her stomach. She can't stay in the car; she can already feel the cold seeping in through the windows. But, she can't leave the car; she isn't dressed to weather a snowstorm.

While she's arguing with herself the merits of trying to walk through the storm, a light catches her attention. It's at ground level just off to the side of where she knows the concrete building is. It doesn't flicker, it's constant. It's a lighthouse in the snowstorm, a beacon calling her to follow it.

But, Andy is sure there is no structure there to explain the sudden appearance of the light. And the warning voice in her mind is screaming at her not to follow it, not to step out of the car.

Curiosity wars with the voice that's telling at her to stay put. She steps out before she's fully thought about it.

The cold is bitter. Her body heat seeps out of the too-few layers she's wearing. She immediately thinks about getting back in the car but when she turns to open the door, the car is gone, swallowed by the snow and darkness.

Andy focuses on the light and starts walking toward it. Her hands and feet have gone numb with cold. She can't seem to get in reach of the light; she thinks it keeps moving every time she gets close. She's been walking for what feels like hours.

The snow stops falling and Andy is elated for a moment, until she stops to look around. She turns every direction, her heart in her throat. She must've walked into the tree line chasing the light. Everything looks the same, trees in every direction. She has no idea where she came in from. The urge to run seizes her.

Andy sees what looks like a fire through the trees. Against her better judgment, but having no better plan, she walks toward it. Her heart beats more frantically every step she approaches. She sees the shadowy figure of _something_ in the light of the fire. The insistent voice in her head is loud. _Run. Run. Run._

But to where would she go?

Andy enters the edge of light, her limbs half-frozen, back and neck stiff with fear. What she sees by the light of the fire makes her heart stop in her chest and her blood runs cold.

"No, no, no." She rushes forward ignoring the fear and warning in her mind. She cradles Miranda's body to hers trying to find the source of the bleeding to stop it.

Tears freeze down her cheeks. The fire doesn't provide any heat.

"What are you doing here?" She asks through the lump in her throat. "How did you even get here?"

"I came looking for you," Miranda says. But the way she says it and the sound of her voice make a chill run up Andy's back. And when her eyes open to look at Andy something isn't right about them.

 _Run. Run. Run_.

Fear grips Andy's chest. She tries to let go of the creature with Miranda's face but it grips her tightly. "I found you."

"No," Andy struggles against the grip, "let me go."

"You walked through the veil on your own. You came here of your own volition," it says with a laugh at the edges of its voice, "you're mine."

Andy frantically reaches for anything that will help her. Her hand grips a rock and she doesn't hesitate to raise it quickly and smash it against a pale temple.

Blood pours from the wound the rock inflicts, all over Andy's hands, and the creature falls limp. Andy has to stop herself from trying to tend it.

"It's not Miranda," she whispers desperately to herself. "It's not Miranda."

But it looks like Miranda and Andy feels her stomach turn when she looks down at her bloody hands. Her heart is still beating wildly when Andy decides she's spent enough time with Miranda's blood on her hands, she's had enough of this torture.

She stands and looks up at the clouded darkness. "I put forth a challenge." She hopes it works, she can't remember exactly the stories she'd heard as a kid.

"You're already mine," a voice echoes back from every direction.

"Not until morning." Andy turns back to where the body was and it's gone, with all traces of blood, except what's still on her hands.

"You will be. You won't survive until morning." The voice is certain. It makes Andy's stomach knot uncomfortably and her back tense. "You have nothing I want that I won't have soon."

Andy thinks quickly. She has to find something. The temperature hasn't stopped dropping and the fire in front of her provides no heat. Her limbs feel heavy and she's so tired. She looks down at the blood on her hands.

"I have love," her teeth chatter, "you can't take that, I have to give it to you."

"Very well."

Andy twirls around to the source of the voice. It came from the mouth of a beautiful woman standing just off center of the fire. But Andy knows it's an illusion, she can see something dark and hideous every time the light of the fire hits it directly. Andy shudders and tries not to look too closely.

But the woman is before her suddenly, finger pressed to Andy's chest. Andy screams as something important is pulled out of every part of her being. It's excruciatingly painful and she ends up on her knees, breathing raggedly by the time the woman has stopped touching her.

In between them is what looks to Andy like a miniature sun. It lights up the entire clearing. The woman looks monstrous in the direct light of it.

"And I offer sight," she says before reaching and pulling her eyes out to hover next to the pulsing ball of light.

Andy swallows down the bile rising in her throat. "I don't want that."

"It's what I offer," the voice is final. "The terms of this challenge?"

"Words," Andy rises shakily to her feet. "A story."

"I have lived a thousand lifetimes, child," there's derision in the voice, "I could tell a million stories."

"But you've never been in love," Andy counters. She looks at the physical representation of what she feels for not only Miranda but for every person she loves. It gives her strength. "You've never loved. All you do is take."

The trees gather around them to judge. And Andy is right. Love is a magic all its own. And words are her magic. And truth. All of which are more powerful than manipulation and illusion.

The scream that erupts from the creature at the judgment of the trees echoes through the darkness.

With new eyes, Andy walks back through the woods and through the veil.

And there, parked exactly where she left it, is the car. She reaches it in a few steps and when she turns the key in the ignition, it starts up immediately.

The first rays of dawn light up the eastern sky as Andy parks the car at the townhouse. She sighs, relief flooding her.

Andy slips into the house quietly. She stops and breathes the space in, appreciates that she's home.

Her new eyes let her see all the beautiful things she's created in this place with her family. She sees the echoes of laughter. She sees that love touches everything.

Andy walks slowly with eyes wide open up to her bedroom.

Miranda is asleep when she walks in. She is radiant and beautiful. Andy has to look away for a moment because she shines so brightly, there no part of her love doesn't touch, doesn't flow out of.

Andy strips down to her underwear not bothering with pajamas. She stops halfway to the bed when she catches sight of herself in the mirror. She shines, too, as brightly as Miranda. She smiles and the light intensifies.

Miranda is turned toward her when she sits on the bed, her blue eyes tracking Andy's movements.

"Hey." Andy gets under the covers and lets the warmth of Miranda's heat take the chill from her bones. She presses a quick kiss to Miranda's mouth. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Miranda watches her closely. Andy wonders if she can feel a difference, maybe even see a difference in her. "I'm glad you're home," she says finally, allowing Andy's cold body to press closely to her warm one.

"Me too," Andy whispers into Miranda's neck. "I'm sorry I missed going out with you and the girls last night."

Miranda doesn't say anything for several moments. She just rubs warmth into Andy's body. "There's always next year."

And that sounds like a promise. Andy's heart squeezes in happiness. "I'll be here." A definite promise.

"What happened last night?" Miranda asks after several minutes of comfortable silence.

Andy is warm and safe and half-asleep. She presses another kiss to Miranda's mouth, just because she wants to and can. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Andy's eyes are closed but she can imagine the raised eyebrows. She cracks an eye open and is surprised to see smiling, knowing eyes peering at her through the semi darkness.

"Try me."

Andy burrows into Miranda's embrace. "Do I have a story to tell you."


End file.
